The Daughters of Merlin

A few months later, things returned to normal. Grace and Virgil were walking through the enchanted forest which connected the castle to Merlin’s cottage which lay a few miles away from the main village into the forest. The pair were heading to Merlin’s cottage having just finished their knight training for the day. Grace had never been very good at her magic unless she was controlling water. Because of this, Grace begged her father to allow her to train with Virgil to become a knight, also giving her an excuse to spend more time with her friend.

Ever since Virgil had met the two daughters of Merlin, the three had quickly become best friends. When Zana wasn’t doing her mage training, she would often join in with the other two on their adventures, the three often getting into all sorts of trouble. Virgil enjoyed Zana’s company and he considered her one of his closest friends (not having many other friends to begin with), but he still preferred Grace’s company over Zana’s; Grace was his closest friend. It wasn’t until recently however that Virgil found himself becoming attracted to the lively daughter of Merlin and Freya in a new way.

“Hey, look.” Grace said, pointing at a nearby apple tree which had quite a few ripe apples, perfect for picking.

Before Virgil could offer to get them some, having been the taller of the two, Grace ran up to the tree, pushing off of the trunk with her bare foot, leaving an icy footprint behind as she did so. She grabbed two apples before landing on the ground, throwing one of the apples at Virgil who caught it.

Usually, Grace would have been wearing a plain white dress with a dark blue ribbon around her waist, but today, it would have only gotten in her way of training. So instead, Grace was wearing a blue shirt and a pair of black trousers, her hair tied back with the dark blue ribbon. Of course, she had no shoes, as the young girl hated wearing them, and Virgil had never even seen her wearing them anyways.

“You left a mark.” Virgil said, smiling as he pointed at the tree.

Grace looked over and she laughed before taking a bite from her apple. “It’ll be fine. It’s only the bark.”

“I wonder if we’ll have a good harvest this year.” Virgil wondered aloud as he took a bite from his own apple as the two continued on walking down the path.

“We always do.” Grace replied, slightly raising a dark eyebrow at him questioningly.

“Yeah, but isn’t Zana helping Merlin this year?” Virgil joked, smiling a bit.

This caused Grace to laugh again. “Careful, if Zana heard you saying that she’d probably turn you into a toad.”

“I think I’d make a rather handsome toad, don’t you?”

Grace rolled her eyes. “It would be an improvement, that’s for sure.”

“Hey!” Virgil shoved her playfully.

Grace shoved Virgil back with all of her might, catching the Prince off guard. And had it not been for a tree, he probably would have fallen down. Before Virgil could get her back however, they were interrupted by a loud explosion followed by a plume of smoke coming from the direction of Merlin’s cottage.

The back half of the cottage was burnt with scorch marks on it. The garden was completely gone and the ground had turned black. Merlin sat on the ground with his hair standing up and soot on his face, smoke still curling off the remains of his cloak, the rest of it having been burnt away. Standing in the back door looking out, bleating worriedly, was Grace’s white sheep, Cloud.

“Papa, what happened?” Grace asked worriedly as she and Virgil ran over to him.

Merlin opened his mouth to reply, but before he could do so, Zana came running from the forest with a bucket of water. She ended up tripping over her own feet and fell down, dumping the water all over her father. Merlin flinched slightly at the sudden coldness before he looked over at his daughter. Zana gave him a sheepish smile.

“Sorry.” She said, hunching her shoulders as her face turned a bright scarlet color.

“Clearly we need to keep to the basics.” Merlin replied.

“What did you do?” Grace asked, trying not to get too annoyed at being ignored as she looked at her older sister.

“I tried a transportation spell. I landed next to the stream, so . . . it worked.” Zana chuckled nervously before looking away. “Sort of.”

“Oh, hello, Virgil. How is your father?” Merlin asked, at last noticing the young prince’s presence.

“He’s good.” Virgil replied, chuckling at them. Even after seven years, Virgil was continually surprised at how different the Calodonensis family was compared to everyone else. Despite this, Virgil hoped they would never change, loving how different and magical they all were.